Tom Izzo staunchly defends Iowa’s Fran McCaffery amid disappointing season

IOWA CITY — Tom Izzo seems to be aware of the sentiment among some Iowa men’s basketball fans and has a warning for those criticizing Fran McCaffery — “one of my favorite guys.”

“Watch what you wish for,” Izzo said.

Izzo offered an extensive defense of his Iowa counterpart after No. 8 Michigan State’s 91-84 win over the Hawkeyes on Thursday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. It pushed the Hawkeyes to 15-15 overall and 6-13 in Big Ten play.

“I look at some of the players he’s had and what they’ve done,” Izzo said in response to a question from The Gazette. “You get lucky and unlucky. I just went through a three-year period where everybody wants to ship me out. It’s just the way it is.”

McCaffery is the program’s all-time wins leader and has a 295-205 record in 15 seasons in Iowa City. His teams have earned March Madness bids in seven of the 14 seasons that had NCAA tournaments.

Like the previous two coaches at Iowa, McCaffery has not advanced past the first weekend of March Madness. The Hawkeyes’ last Sweet 16 trip was in 1999 — Tom Davis’ final season at the helm.

“They don’t have the resources here,” Izzo said from the media room in 42-year-old Carver-Hawkeye Arena. “I’m going to say what I think. This ain’t what Fran thinks. Everybody has different amounts of resources. They’re not on the middle or high end.”

Izzo added that it is “easy to throw stones.”

“Everybody says, ‘Well, we’re paying guys money now, so you should be able to win,’” Izzo said. “Well, don’t you think the rest of us are paying money? No different.”

Izzo and McCaffery have coached against each other 24 times during their respective tenures at Michigan State and Iowa. Izzo has a 16-8 all-time advantage, but McCaffery has won five of the last seven games.

“He’s sticking around if it’s up to me because I need him,” Izzo said. “I need some of the guys that helped build this conference again, and he’s one of them. And I think tonight proves it.”

Iowa built a 14-point lead in the first half and retained the lead for the rest of the first half and some of the second half before Michigan State pulled away for a 91-84 Big Ten title-clinching win.

“We had everything to play for,” Izzo said. “They didn’t have as much to play for. I’m supposed to be such a good coach. He kicked my butt, our butt for most of that time.”

This is not the first time Izzo has publicly backed an embattled Iowa coach. Izzo offered a defense of Todd Lickliter in 2010, noting “the respect people have for him” and saying “this system is going to work.”

But things didn’t work for Lickliter and the Hawkeyes, as they finished that season 10-22 overall and 4-14 in Big Ten play. Lickliter was fired after the season and replaced by McCaffery.

The next few weeks will presumably reveal whether McCaffery can avoid the same outcome as the last Iowa coach that Izzo staunchly supported.

“Franny better keep grinding it because the guy can coach,” Izzo said.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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